Maastricht is located between two extremities. On the one hand, the center that seems to be frozen in a heritage policy that allows little flexibility. On the other hand, the suburbs where the change is so intense that time layers are constantly being wiped away and what remains seems generic. The site of this graduation project is located between these two worlds, on the site of the former fortifications.

On the site there is an old paper factory, for which a redevelopment is proposed in this thesis. The factory developed together with the dismantling of the fortifications and therefore inherited large parts of its morphology to these older military structures. A thorough inventory revealed a pattern of parallel walls beneath the maze-like factory. They had grown next to the fortification wall and came to form the main characters in the new design for the factory.

In my design, the elongated machine halls for paper production become passages that run through the heart of the factory. In the north of the site, the green belt that surrounded the city will be reconnected by the construction of a large park, which will be connected to the other bank of the Meuse by reusing an abandoned railway bridge. One of the buildings with a passageway will be arranged on the floors above the passageway as flexible housing for expats and migrants.

The present paper investigates the architectural meaning and importance of borders in the context of increased European cooperation. The question is investigated through the case study of the trinational border area in the metropolitan region of Basel, where Switzerland, Germany and France meet. The central theme propelling the discussion is the question of how the idea of the border has changed through history in the three countries and how this has affected the architecture of the study area. The research provides an insight into how the abstract ideas of borders and nations are translated into urban form.Over the course of history, the Basel region has seen many different systems of territorial division. The physical lines can be traced back to the roman era, but the widely accepted meaning of the border has varied greatly over the centuries. The border has produced different kinds of architecture depending on the way that it was interpreted by different people in different eras. The early history of the Basel region shows that many different border demarcations could have been the outcome of antiquity and the middle ages. It was only when the border line was widely accepted as a part of everyday life, through the increasing influence of monarchies and later on, the nation states, that the border gained in power as a primary urban element in Basel. This strong position was maintained by historiographical constructions that legitimized the location and importance of the border and made the border generally accepted by the public. This new kind of border initially produced military architecture and pushed away urban centres. When capitalism and industrialization gradually took over from the feudal monarchies, a second type of architecture started to emerge. A dense industrial strip following the border was a consequence of the transition of legal apparatuses that takes place here. Following the world wars, the image of the Rhineland underwent a drastic change in the EU countries, promoting the idea of European unity. In combination with the post war economic prosperity, the deconstruction of the European borders has led to the discovery of vacant land in the middle of the Basel metropolis. The discovery of the possibilities that transnational cooperation gives has laid the foundation for a new ambition: a common international neighbourhood.